Prescribed fire and timber harvest effects on terrestrial salamander abundance, detectability, and microhabitat use

摘要: Prescribed fire and timber harvest are anthropogenic disturbances that modify resource availability ecosystem structure, can affect wildlife both directly indirectly. Terrestrial salamanders effective indicators of forest health due to their high abundance sensitivity microclimatic conditions. Given ecological importance, it is critical understand how respond management-related disturbances. We predicted prescribed would decrease salamander availability, increase cover object use. surveyed for southern red-backed (Plethodon serratus) over 9 sampling periods from 2010 2014 in a Missouri Ozark (USA) forest, used binomial mixture models estimate detectability large-scale Before-After, Control-Impact (BACI) experiment. Five replicate 5-ha units were randomly assigned each treatment (prescribed burn, shelterwood harvest, midstory herbicide) control. compared abundance, surface activity, detectability, microhabitat use among treatments. Abundance activity decreased post-treatment shelterwood, midstory, burn units. estimates rebounded the second year but declined further Overall, treatments had stronger effects on than actual abundance. also found higher proportion under objects after fire, illustrating importance accounting imperfect detectability. Our findings foster more robust understanding mechanisms underlying population-level responses management practices, ultimately increasing our ability manage terrestrial effectively.